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NASA is going back to the Moon, and Curious Universe is bringing podcast listeners along for the Artemis II journey. Releasing weekly, this five-part companion podcast shares exclusive astronaut interviews and immersive field recordings from unique locations across the agency, revealing the incredible teamwork, passion, and problem-solving fueling humanity\u2019s return to the Moon, and beyond.<\/p>\n
This year, four NASA astronauts will fly around the Moon and back for the first time since the Apollo program. Their mission is called Artemis II. It\u2019s a key test flight that will set the stage for Artemis III, when humans land on the lunar South Pole for the first time and set up a long-term presence there. In this episode, meet your intrepid Artemis II crew: commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.<\/p>\n
[MUSIC: \u201cI Want to Be An Astronaut\u201d by Alan D. Boyd]<\/p>\n
APOLLO 8 ARCHIVAL<\/a>: <\/b>Transmission is coming to you approximately halfway between the Moon and the Earth. It\u2019s a beautiful, beautiful view.<\/p>\n CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: <\/b>I was just a kid in grade school at the end of the Apollo program, and I remember watching those moon landings with my classmates\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n APOLLO 11 ARCHIVAL<\/a>: <\/b>Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed. Roger Tranquility, we copy you on the ground.<\/p>\n CHARLIE: <\/b>\u2026and being so intrigued, so curious, so inspired.\u00a0<\/p>\n APOLLO 11 ARCHIVAL: <\/b>That\u2019s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.<\/p>\n CHARLIE: <\/b>Apollo made the world stop and look.\u00a0<\/p>\n APOLLO 17 ARCHIVAL<\/a>: <\/b>And as we leave the Moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave it we came and God willing as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.<\/p>\n \u00a0CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: <\/b>And I think that Artemis will do the same thing. The world will stop and look up in wonder, in intrigue, and will feel a sense of accomplishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cFast Motion Orchestra\u201d by Laurent Levesque]\u00a0<\/p>\n ARTEMIS I ARCHIVAL: <\/b>And here we go. Hydrogen burn off\u2026\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n VICTOR GLOVER:<\/b> Pushing ourselves to explore is just core to who we are. That\u2019s a part of being a human.\u00a0<\/p>\n ARTEMIS I ARCHIVAL: <\/b>Core stage engine start.<\/p>\n VICTOR GLOVER: <\/b>We want to know what\u2019s out there just beyond the horizon, and so the Artemis program is our opportunity. \u00a0<\/p>\n ARTEMIS I LAUNCH ARCHIVAL: <\/b>And liftoff of Artemis I. We rise together back to the Moon and beyond.<\/p>\n REID WISEMAN: <\/b>At a high level, the Artemis II mission launches out of Kennedy Space Center on the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, and the crew will travel two orbits around Earth and then head on to the Moon, 250,000 miles from Earth. There\u2019s only one primary goal of Artemis II, is to prepare this spacecraft for Artemis III and for our NASA astronauts to go land on the Moon.\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY HANSEN: <\/b>Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo. That\u2019s intentional. It is to remind us that we\u2019re going to go do great things. Yes, we\u2019re going to put humans back on the surface of the Moon. But we\u2019re not stopping there. When you see us fly around the Moon on Artemis II, that is just a snippet of the incredible things that are to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>We\u2019re going back to the Moon because it\u2019s the next step in our journey to Mars. We need to go explore the Moon. There\u2019s vast regions of unexplored areas with the coldest, darkest places in our solar system.\u00a0<\/p>\n CHRISTINA KOCH: <\/b>From the time humans started exploring this was always in our future and in our fate. We were always going to the moon. <\/p>\n REID:<\/b> In our lifetime, we\u2019ve looked at the Moon knowing that people had been there. And now in the Artemis generation, kids will walk out and look at the Moon going, we are there. We are there now, and we are going further into our solar system.\u00a0<\/p>\n CHRISTINA:<\/b> I\u2019m Christina Koch.\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY:<\/b> Jeremy Hansen. \u00a0<\/p>\n VICTOR:<\/b> I\u2019m Victor Glover.\u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, I\u2019m gonna fly with Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen around the Moon and safely back to Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cSupercluster\u201d by Sergey Azbel]<\/p>\n PADI BOYD: <\/b>This has got to be one of the most exciting things we are preparing for and that we\u2019ve ever prepared for. You\u2019re listening to NASA\u2019s Curious Universe. I\u2019m Padi Boyd.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB PINTER:<\/b> And I\u2019m Jacob Pinter. NASA is leading a golden age of space exploration.\u00a0Through the Artemis campaign<\/a>, humans are returning to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. In Artemis I<\/a>, NASA tested the mighty SLS lunar rocket and the Orion space capsule with an uncrewed flight test around the Moon in 2022.\u00a0Now, NASA is about to launch Artemis II<\/a> with four astronauts who will fly Orion around the Moon and back to Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>And it gets even better. The Artemis II test flight will prepare us for the next Artemis missions, when astronauts return to the surface of the Moon and explore places where humans have never ventured before. And Artemis will build upon the foundation we\u2019ve laid and prepare us for the first human journey to Mars. \u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>In this limited series\u2013you are along for the ride of Artemis II. You\u2019ll meet the astronauts flying around the Moon<\/a> and go behind the scenes with NASA engineers and scientists powering this mission.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Basically, you\u2019re going behind the scenes as the astronauts go behind the Moon! In this episode: the astronauts. We\u2019re introducing you to the Artemis II mission through the people flying on it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>We also had the rare chance to get these four very busy astronauts into a room together for a roundtable conversation about the bonds they\u2019ve built as a team, the hard conversations they\u2019re having with their families, and what\u2019s going through their heads leading up to launch. \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, are you ready to meet your crew?<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>First up, your Artemis II commander: NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cSingularity\u201d by Sergey Azbel]<\/p>\n REID:\u00a0<\/b> My role as commander on this mission is simply to take care of my crew, take care of this Orion spacecraft, get us around the Moon, and get us safely back to planet Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Reid joined the astronaut corps in 2009. This will be his second trip to space.\u00a0He\u2019s flown all sorts of fighter jets as a Navy test pilot. He\u2019s a natural leader. He\u2019s got a good sense of humor and a high-level view of the mission always in mind. He\u2019s also served as chief of NASA\u2019s astronaut office. But before all that, he was a kid from Baltimore. \u00a0<\/p>\n REID:<\/b> I was a tiny kid. Like, I was really skinny. I was really small. I never thought I\u2019d be an astronaut. I mean, come on, it\u2019s like an unobtainable dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>But Reid knew one thing: he wanted to fly. \u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>Growing up in Maryland, there was a National Guard base nearby my house. And there were A-10 aircraft that would fly over every now and then, and I just would look up at them be like, Man, I want to be up there. I want to go do that. Flying is freedom to me. When you come off that aircraft carrier, you are truly just alone with yourself out there.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Reid spent 165 days on the International Space Station in 2014 as a flight engineer<\/a>. He climbed into a spacesuit and stepped out of the space station airlock to make repairs on two spacewalks, and he\u2019s conducted over 300 science experiments. But he says the best parts were the friends he made along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>When you laugh so hard that you get tears in your eyes in space, they just stay in your eyes. They don\u2019t run down your cheeks. That\u2019s like one of the most memorable things. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Huh, wow, that is pretty cool. OK, now, meet your pilot: NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy captain and test pilot Victor Glover<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cAurora Borealis\u201d by Frederik Helmut Wiedmann]<\/p>\n VICTOR:\u00a0 <\/b>As a test pilot, the opportunity to fly a spaceship is just a dream. In all of human history, you know, we haven\u2019t flown that many spaceships, and so the ability to fly one, actually in space on a test mission, is just a really unique opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>As the pilot, it\u2019ll be Victor\u2019s job to grab hold of the flight control stick and demonstrate Orion\u2019s handling capabilities in space.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n VICTOR: <\/b>In the shuttle era, the pilot\u2019s job was not to fly the spacecraft. The orbiter was landed by the commander, the pilot\u2019s main responsibility was to make sure the toilet worked. And it\u2019s funny, because in my interview back in 2012 maybe early 2013 I said to them, you know, if you need somebody to repair the sink or to fix the toilet, I\u2019m your guy, you know.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>Victor joined the astronaut corps in 2013. This is his second trip to space. And second time flying a new spaceship. He was the pilot for the Crew-1 Dragon spacecraft to the space station<\/a> on its first operational mission.\u00a0Victor lived and worked for 168 days on the International Space Station<\/a> in 2020 and 2021, and he conducted four spacewalks<\/a>. Victor is a procedures guy. He\u2019s very analytical, whether he\u2019s flying a spaceship or making sure the crew\u2019s checklists are in order. In fact, years ago one of his bosses gave him the nickname \u201cIke\u201d for \u201cI Know Everything.\u201d Victor grew up all over Southern California. And moving around a lot, school was a constant for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n VICTOR: M<\/b>y favorite subjects in school were math recess and lunch. My close friends, we called ourselves the Knights of the Round Table, and I\u2019m not afraid to admit that. But we would stand around this water fountain, and we would just tell jokes and tell stories. And that group of friends to this day, they\u2019re still my closest friends, and we still refer to ourselves as the knights.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>Victor is a super smart guy and a great engineer, but he\u2019s always felt more confident on the field than in the classroom. Growing up, he wrestled, played football and ran track. Once he joined the Navy, he flew more than 30 different aircraft and picked up a masters degree in his spare time.\u00a0<\/p>\n VICTOR: <\/b>When I applied to be an astronaut, I thought I was going to get a nice letter saying, Hey, thanks, kid, we got this covered, you know? So being a part of Artemis II or Crew-1 , and flying on an expedition on the space station, I think these things are gifts. \u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/strong>Let\u2019s move on to our next astronaut. Your first mission specialist is NASA astronaut Christina Koch. Artemis II will be her second trip to space \u2013 although her first trip was a long one.\u00a0Christina spent almost a full year on the International Space Station, where she participated in the first all-female spacewalk. Christina\u2019s background is in engineering. In fact, before she became an astronaut, her resume included working as an electrical engineer at NASA, helping to develop instruments for missions to space. She\u2019s also conducted science in some very remote places, including Antarctica. In her spare time, she\u2019s a rock climber, a surfer, and a DIY motorcycle mechanic. Christina\u2019s from the South. She grew up in nature, in the forests of coastal North Carolina and on her family\u2019s farm in Michigan, where she spent summers.<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cRedshift\u201d by Sergey Azbel]<\/p>\n CHRISTINA: <\/b>I was always outside. I was climbing trees in my backyard. I was going to the beach. I loved things that made me feel small. I love looking at the night sky, oftentimes between the pine tree branches, I love the ocean. North Carolina also has mountains and when we\u2019d go there, I\u2019d just love the vastness of those things. I loved how they made me feel and what they made me think about, and the vastness of the universe and how much out there was to learn, and just that perspective of there\u2019s so much more out there than we can see in our day to day lives, and what do we learn about ourselves when we go to explore it?\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI:\u00a0<\/b> Christina came to NASA through civilian life. But ever since she was in elementary school, she wanted to be an astronaut.\u00a0She had a poster of Earthrise<\/a> hanging in her bedroom\u2014that famous photo of Earth from the perspective of the first astronauts ever to fly around the Moon. And it was a dream she never outgrew. Christina studied engineering in college and took a semester off to study abroad in Ghana, which is where she started to learn to love exploration\u2014going to new places like tropical islands in the middle of the South Pacific or Antarctica. She feels more comfortable in a space suit or a snow suit than at a computer desk. The research she did in extreme environments prepared her for the challenges of space.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n CHRISTINA: <\/b>There are things about our universe we can only learn if we go to certain places. Only those places can tell us those things about the universe. I always say to people, do what scares you. And that means I have to follow my own advice. So doing what scares me meant getting on a plane and going to the Antarctic, getting on a plane and going to study abroad in Ghana, applying to become an astronaut, strapping myself onto a rocket, opening the EVA hatch in the airlock and going out of it into the darkness.<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>Rounding out your crew: Jeremy Hansen<\/a>, also a mission specialist.\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY: <\/b>Je suis Colonel Jeremy Hansen. Un astronaute avec l\u2019agence spatiale canadienne. \u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>Jeremy is an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, which means he has to speak French as well as English. His spot on the crew makes him the first non-U.S. astronaut to venture to the Moon. He\u2019s a pilot with the Canadian Royal Air Force. He joined the Canadian Astronaut program in 2009 and has worked closely with NASA astronauts since then. \u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cPolitical Strategy\u201d by Pip Heywood]<\/p>\n This will be his first trip to space, but he\u2019s well prepared. He\u2019s lived underwater for a week in the Aquarius undersea research station<\/a>. He even went on simulated moonwalks on the seafloor as an aquanaut.\u00a0He\u2019s also delved into caves with the European Space Agency to learn to work together with other astronauts in harsh environments.\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY: <\/b>And every day we just explored deeper. We slept in the cave. We ate there. So for seven days, we were truly just inside Mother Earth, exploring deeper and deeper. It\u2019s one of the most dangerous things I\u2019ve ever done. Caves are a really dangerous environment, where one moment you can be in this safe environment, and the next moment there\u2019s a huge cliff that you could fall off of and you have to make decisions. Are we going to take time to set up safety ropes, or can we manage this risk if we just go slowly and carefully?\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>Jeremy grew up on a farm in Ontario in southern Canada, helping his dad in the fields and fixing tractors. He loved airplanes, even when he was a little kid. He loved them so much that he would pull down the \u201cA\u201d volume of the encyclopedia and open it to the entry for \u201cairplane\u201d. And then one time, he opened it to the wrong page. He was looking at A for Armstrong. There was a photo of Neil Armstrong standing on the Moon<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Now here is the part where I get really jealous of Jeremy.\u00a0He had a tree house\u2014a real one, like you see in the movies. And with that picture of Neil Armstrong burned into his brain. Jeremy\u2019s tree house became a spaceship. \u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY: <\/b>Although my dad did most of the building of the tree house, it was a pretty elaborate tree house, it even had a fireman\u2019s pole you could slide down. But inside, I put a lot of effort into it. I went to the barn and I rummaged around and found some scrap wood, and I made a control column that I could steer with hinges. I had the switches that I found in the barn that were circuit breakers, and I mounted them in there. I had dials I\u2019d cut out cardboard, and then some popsicle sticks so I could change the altitudes and the speeds. I\u2019m not much of an artist, but I did draw on the wall with crayon, some kind of star fields. And I would just go on these missions to explore space. And when my friends and cousins would come over, we would go on these missions as well, together.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>So that\u2019s your crew for Artemis II: Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy. These are the explorers bringing humanity back to the Moon.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Over the past almost three years, these astronauts have trained, traveled and lived together, preparing for this mission with endless hours of simulations and grueling trainings<\/a>.<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cBusy Life\u201d by Laurent Levesque]<\/p>\n PADI: <\/strong>They\u2019ve practiced flying Orion in simulators<\/a> and escaping the capsule in a giant pool. They\u2019ve even hiked through craters in Iceland to learn geology<\/a>. And they\u2019ve emerged as just about as tight knit a team as possible. Now they\u2019re about to make history.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>So let\u2019s talk about how Artemis II is going to go. I have to put in a quick plug because NASA is going to be covering all of this.\u00a0You can watch the launch; the lunar flyby, when a new generation of NASA astronauts sees the Moon up close with their own eyes; their return to Earth; and every second in between at nasa.gov\/artemis.<\/a><\/p>\n This show is your behind-the-scenes guide.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/strong>So Artemis II astronauts, we\u2019re all going with you in spirit.<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/strong>So suit up. And don\u2019t forget your helmet. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY: <\/b>Artemis II, the second in this campaign of missions to take humanity back to the moon with an eye towards Mars, will be the first time we put humans on this rocket. So on Artemis I we flew an uncrewed test mission of the Orion capsule<\/a> and the SLS rocket<\/a>. But this time, there will be a crew of four, be Reid, Victor, Christina and myself, and we\u2019ll be testing this Orion capsule, making sure the life support systems work all the manual control systems work. To do that, we\u2019ll fly it around Earth, initially, test some things out, then take it around the Moon<\/a> and ultimately, our goal is to make sure it is ready for Artemis III to take humans back to the surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>OK, let\u2019s get into that in a little more detail. On launch day, the\u00a0crew will wake up about eight hours before liftoff. \u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cTurbulent Times\u201d by Laurent Levesque]<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/strong>They\u2019ll say goodbye to their families, get checked out by doctors, suit up, and then drive out to the launch pad and ride an elevator up 274 feet<\/a> or about 84 meters to the Orion spacecraft, which the astronauts have named<\/a> Integrity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When the crew are strapped in and the countdown reaches zero, four big rocket engines ignite, followed by the two solid rocket boosters. And then the SLS rocket soars.\u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>When the four RS-25s light up, we got about seven seconds before we lift off. And then our two solid rocket boosters light, and we are definitely going when those five-segment solids light. \u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>Seven seconds later, the bottom of the rocket clears the launch tower and flies into the sky, and off they go. \u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>Once that happens, the vehicle will do an automated roll and start tracking down range. It\u2019s pretty neat to see how quickly we pick up speed and how quickly the nose of the spacecraft drops down as we accelerate across planet Earth to build up that orbital velocity. \u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Once the astronauts reach Earth orbit, they\u2019ll check out the systems in Orion. If everything looks good, they\u2019ll do a maneuver called an apogee raise burn to reach an orbit 38,000 nautical miles above Earth.\u00a0Just to put that in perspective, that\u2019s about 150 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station\u2014farther than anyone has been in decades. From that distance, Earth will be about the size of a basketball held at arm\u2019s length out Orion\u2019s windows.\u00a0And that\u2019s just the start.\u00a0<\/p>\n REID: <\/b>About an hour and a half after that apogee raise burn, we will disconnect from our interim cryogenic propulsion stage, our upper stage, and we\u2019ll turn the Orion spacecraft around. At this point in time, Victor Glover will be flying, and we\u2019ll do a prox operations demo. \u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>OK, let\u2019s break down some astronaut jargon.\u00a0\u201cProx ops\u201d is short for \u201cproximity operations.\u201d<\/a> Even though this happens before the astronauts head to the Moon, this is a really important milestone. It\u2019s basically a test drive. So first, Orion\u2019s software automatically spins the spacecraft around to face the discarded upper stage of the rocket. At this point, Victor takes control manually with Orion about a football field away from the rocket. Victor flies Orion closer, like a practice run for docking with a lunar lander on future missions. Orion gets to within 30 feet of its target. In space terms, that\u2019s really close.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cSpacewalk\u201d by Sergey Azbel]<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/strong>Ok, phew. That\u2019s a lot, right? Well that\u2019s just the first day of a 10-day mission! At this point, the crew is only about one-sixth the distance to the Moon. At this point, they\u2019ll have a few more hours of checkout, making sure all systems are go. And then it\u2019s time to head to the Moon. They\u2019ll make one big engine burn, a major milestone called translunar injection. Then, it\u2019s a four day trip to the Moon.\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI: <\/b>Now, the part I\u2019m most excited about: the crew will fly around the lunar far side<\/a>.\u00a0During the three or more hours of lunar flyby, these four humans will have a better view of the Moon\u2019s surface than anyone has for decades. And with eyes trained by NASA geologists, they\u2019ll observe lunar features up close and may see parts of the Moon that no one has ever seen before. For about 45 minutes, when they are on the opposite side of the Moon, they won\u2019t be able to communicate with Earth at all. It will just be the four astronauts floating in their capsule and the Moon. \u00a0<\/p>\n Then, the pull of Earth\u2019s gravity will bring Artemis II back home. Four days later, Orion will parachute through the sky and splash down into the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0Results from this mission will prepare NASA for future Artemis missions, when humans again leave footprints on the Moon and establish a long-term presence there. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB: <\/b>These four intrepid explorers are going to be responsible for a lot of firsts. The first to return to the Moon. The first to fly Orion. But they have this saying: they insist that they don\u2019t want people in the future to remember those firsts\u2014or to remember them at all\u2014because even bigger things are coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n CHRISTINA<\/b>: I have to be honest, I hope that they don\u2019t remember Artemis II. I hope that people recognize that Artemis II was the stepping stone for something so much greater\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY: <\/b>Victor coined this term in our crew early on about a relay race. And it just really resonates.\u00a0<\/p>\n CHRISTINA: <\/b>We are enablers. We are here to make sure that the future is as good as it can be every bit of effort that we spend a lot of it actually won\u2019t affect our mission, but we\u2019re making it better for the people that are coming,\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n JEREMY:<\/b> We are just proving out the Orion capsule. The next crew has to prove out a lunar lander, and you put those two together, and then you can put people on the surface of the moon. I do hope that the globe will pause when there are humans who have left the planet and are on the far side of the Moon. I hope that we all pause during that time frame. I think that would be good for us as a human race.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n PADI:<\/b> During Artemis II, the astronauts will bring their unique skillsets and perspectives and act as one unit. To prepare for this remarkable mission, the astronauts have gone through an intensive training program. For almost three years, they have studied their spacecraft, simulated as many mission scenarios as NASA engineers can think of, and immersed themselves in geology so they can gather valuable data as they fly past the Moon. And they have also worked hard to be a better team. They\u2019ve studied psychology and worked with coaches to maximize their performance together.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB:<\/b> As you\u2019re about to hear, they have formed a unique bond. There are just some things about being an astronaut that nobody else can relate to. But I wanted to try. <\/p>\n [MUSIC: \u201cTowards the Light\u201d by Cliff Haywood]<\/p>\n So we gathered these four astronauts for a round-table interview to learn about their training and how it feels to be in their shoes.\u00a0And to really make the most of it, we teamed up with Houston We Have a Podcast<\/a>. Houston We Have a Podcast is another official NASA podcast<\/a>.\u00a0As you probably guessed, it is based in Houston, at the Johnson Space Center<\/a>.\u00a0It explores the world of human spaceflight through in-depth conversations with episodes dropping every week. So let me introduce you to Nilufar Ramji<\/a>. She is a NASA public affairs officer. She\u2019s one of the hosts of Houston We Have a Podcast. Hi Nilufar!\u00a0<\/p>\n NILUFAR RAMJI:<\/strong> Hey Jacob! Excited for this collaboration.\u00a0<\/p>\n JACOB:<\/strong> Me too. OK, so during the Artemis II mission, you have a super cool job. You\u2019re going to be taking shifts inside mission control<\/a>. You\u2019ll be one of the public affairs officers communicating with the world in real-time. And can you just describe what it feels like to be in that room?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"NASA\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dsc07877orig.jpg\")
NASA\u2019s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft atop launches the agency\u2019s Artemis I flight test, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022 from Launch Complex 39B at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<\/p>\n![\"NASA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/iss040e006906orig.jpg\")
NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, Expedition 40 flight engineer, is photographed in front of the International Space Station Cupola windows with a toy giraffe floating beside him in 2014.<\/p>\n![\"NASA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/iss064e044145orig.jpg\")
NASA astronaut and Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Victor Glover poses for a portrait inside the International Space Station\u2019s Kibo laboratory module in 2021.<\/p>\n![\"Expedition](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/iss060e006063orig.jpg\")
Expedition 60 Flight Engineer Christina Koch of NASA works inside the Quest joint airlock cleaning U.S. spacesuit cooling loops and replacing spacesuit components on July 8, 2019.<\/p>\n![\"Canadian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jsc2025e004073orig.jpg\")
Canadian Space Agency astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Jeremy Hansen inside of the Orion spacecraft mockup during Post Insertion and Deorbit Preparation training at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in Houston, Texas. The crew practiced getting the Orion spacecraft configured once in orbit, how to make it habitable, and suited up in their entry pressure suits to prepare for their return from the Moon.<\/p>\n![\"NASA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jsc2023e016432-alt2orig.jpg\")
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen are the four astronauts who will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA\u2019s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis.<\/p>\n![\"Technicians](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/maf-20230908-cs2-eng2059-move44to47-17orig.jpg\")
Technicians at NASA\u2019s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans have installed the first of four RS-25 engines on the core stage of the agency\u2019s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will help power NASA\u2019s first crewed Artemis mission to the Moon.<\/p>\n![\"Technicians](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ksc-20251017-ph-ajn01-0019orig.jpg\")
Technicians with NASA\u2019s Exploration Ground Systems team prepare to attach a crane to lift and secure NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft on top of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, for the agency\u2019s Artemis II mission.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/art001e000268orig-2.jpg\")
A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this image taken on the sixth day of the Artemis I mission by a camera on the tip of one of Orion\u2019s solar arrays.<\/p>\n![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/KSC-20230920-PH-KLS01_0106~large.jpg\")
Inside the Astronaut Crew Quarters at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Artemis II crew members (from left) NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch are shown wearing test versions of the Orion crew survival system spacesuits they will wear on launch day as part of an integrated ground systems test on Wednesday, Sept. 20.<\/p>\n
![\"Flight](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jsc2022e090130orig.jpg\")
Flight Directors Paul Konyha and Nicole McElroy monitor the Orion spacecraft as it reaches its record-breaking distance from the Earth, nearly 270,000 miles, on flight day 14 of the Artemis I mission. (NASA\/Robert Markowitz)<\/p>\n![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nhq202512190020large.jpg\")
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis II Launch Director, right, talks to NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander, second from right, Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, as teams at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida practiced various emergency rescue training scenarios with the Artemis II crew, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, ahead of the Artemis II mission. In the unlikely event of an emergency during launch countdown at Launch Complex 39B, personnel will be transported in mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPS, from the pad and to one of the triage site locations at Kennedy. (NASA\/Joel Kowsky)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nhq202406040011orig.jpg\")
The Artemis II crew, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, pose for a photo after a Moon tree dedication ceremony, Tuesday, June 4, 2024 at the United States Capitol in Washington. The American Sweetgum tree planted on the southwestern side of the Capitol, was grown from a seed that was flown around the Moon during the Artemis I mission. (NASA\/Aubrey Gemignani)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jsc2025e004086orig.jpg\")
The Artemis II crew, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, completing Post Insertion and Deorbit Preparation training at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in Houston, Texas. The crew practiced getting the Orion spacecraft configured once in orbit, how to make it habitable, and suited up in their entry pressure suits to prepare for their return from the Moon. (NASA\/Mark Sowa)<\/p>\n![\"Bill](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nhq202512200051orig.jpg\")
Bill Owens of the Closeout Crew leads the Artemis II crewmembers NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; from the elevator at the 275-foot level of the mobile launcher to the crew access arm as they prepare to board their Orion spacecraft atop NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket during the Artemis II countdown demonstration test, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA\/Joel Kowsky)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/KSC-20250811-PH-KLS01_0136~large.jpg\")
From left to right, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot and Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander, conduct suit-up operations inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. During a two-day operation, the Artemis II team practiced night-run demonstrations of different launch day scenarios like suit-up operations, walk-out, and arriving at the launch pad for the Artemis II test flight. Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars \u2013 for the benefit of all.<\/p>\n